Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative

To achieve the goal of thriving in a world where there is a complete and undeniable direction towards moral humanity would greatly benefit society. Knowing the distinction of when you are in the right or the wrong of morality could prevent many issues that we experience in society today. Immanuel Kant crafted an impressive system known as the categorical imperative, which requires a thorough examination to truly understand its aspects. I believe it is also important to analyze the aspects of the categorical imperative to determine if it is applicable in today’s societies. The categorical imperative can be broken down to better understand its meaning. An imperative is basically something that should be done, or is something in which someone …show more content…
My immediate reaction towards the categorical imperative is that it is a reliable system to use to base key decisions off of. However, I also feel that it should be used as a guideline rather than a strict standard to base all of your choices off of. I think people in society have the ability to use their common sense to make decisions that sometimes don’t necessarily follow the categorical imperative. The classic example of not being able to lie to a person with an unconcealed weapon who is looking for someone greatly illustrates my point. Although this certain scenario is highly unlikely to happen to us, I feel that we would sense the danger, and base our decisions off of our natural instincts. Even though we sometimes don’t have all the information of a situation present to us, I think it’s important to rely on our senses to make a proper judgement call to prevent a negative occurrence. I think the best thing to do when contemplating the use of the categorical imperative is to reevaluate the situation if it doesn’t feel right. To bind ourselves wholly to principles and definitions would be insulting to our biological capabilities. One thing that I find difficult about the use of the categorical imperative in society is that it seems that a lot of people don’t know that it exists. I had no idea that the system existed prior to attending this philosophy course. I feel that a large portion of society knows about The Golden Rule, which is a similar system, but still has some major differences. I think one of the motivations that drives the application of the categorical imperative is that you would receive the same moral treatment from other people that you would display towards others. This would prove to be difficult due to the fact that the universal use of the categorical imperative has a low awareness